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true pastors of the
Church, who are the true guardians of the Divine Word, have preserved it
unchangeably against the efforts of those who have attempted to destroy it.
And thus true believers have no pretext to follow that laxity, which is only
offered to them by the strange hands of these casuists, instead of the sound
doctrine which is presented to them by the fatherly hands of their own
pastors. And the ungodly and heretics have no ground for publishing these
abuses as evidence of imperfection in the providence of God over His Church;
since, the Church consisting properly in the body of the hierarchy, we are
so far from being able to conclude from the present state of matters that
God has abandoned her to corruption, that it has never been more apparent
than at the present time that God visibly protects her from corruption.
For if some of these men, who, by an extraordinary vocation, have made
profession of withdrawing from the world and adopting the monks' dress, in
order to live in a more perfect state than ordinary Christians, have fallen
into excesses which horrify ordinary Christians, and have become to us what
the false prophets were among the Jews; this is a private and personal
misfortune, which must indeed be deplored, but from which nothing can be
inferred against the care which God takes of His Church; since all these
things are so clearly foretold, and it has been so long since announced that
these temptations would arise from people of this kind; so that when we are
well instructed, we see in this rather evidence of the care of God than of
His forgetfulness in regard to us.
890. Tertullian: Nunquam Ecclesia reformabitur.222
891. Heretics, who take advantage of the doctrine of the Jesuits, must be
made to know that it is not that of the Church, and that our divisions do
not separate us from the altar.
892. If in differing we condemned, you would be right. Uniformi
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